[quote=ASTA]
Why would antimatter weapons render a specific nation's shipbuilding approach less effective?@Alien When I get around to my next post, I'll throw something your way.
[/quote]

Some nations do not have shielding, preferring thicker armour or simply because they don't have shields yet. As such, there ships will be designed with this in mind, more armour plating to compensate. The effectiveness of this is limited to whether the opposition can strip your armour away quickly... Anti-matter and plasma would likely play well into this. Thus, if you possess such weapons, especially anti-matter, the logical conclusion is that the oppositions ships and their designs would require reworking or at the very least refitting.